P.E.I. rink scoring at record pace
Birt’s team sets, ties marks by racking up points against New Brunswick and N.W.T.
Over the span of two games, at the highest level of Canadian women’s curling, Team Prince Edward Island scored 28 points. That is not a misprint.
The P.E.I. team, skipped by Suzanne Birt, edged New Brunswick 13-12 on Tuesday afternoon in the highest scoring game in Scotties Tournament of Hearts history. Then P.E.I. followed that up with a 15-5 win over Northwest Territories on Wednesday morning.
The 15 points tied a Scotties record and their steal of six points in the eighth end also tied a tournament record.
You’d have to think this has something to do with the implementation of the five-rock freeguard zone at the Scotties for the first time this year. It leads to far more rocks in play than there used to be and more big ends. There have been big scores on the board all through the week.
“I don’t know if it’s the fiverock rule or if we’re keeping the pressure on and getting rocks in good spots,” said Birt, whose team is through to the championship round with a record of 5-2.
“It’s fun scoring lots of points.” The P.E.I. team, which also includes third Marie Christianson, second Meghan Hughes and lead Michelle Mcquaid, came into the event with a goal of making the championship round.
“We have as good a shot as anybody and a few good games in the championship pool will give us a really good shot at making the playoffs for sure,” said Birt, whose team lost 7-3 to Saskatchewan (Robyn Silvernagle) Wednesday night.
Team Wild Card (Casey Scheidegger) finished atop Pool B with a 6-1 record, thanks to a 7-3 win over Team Canada (Jennifer Jones) on Wednesday night, coupled with a 7-3 win over New Brunswick earlier in the day.
Saskatchewan (5-2) and Canada (4-3) are also through the championship round, which starts Thursday afternoon at Centre 200.
CANADA IN TROUBLE
Jones, the defending Canadian and world women’s champion, barely backed into the championship round when Northwest Territories (Kerry Galusha) surprisingly lost to Yukon 13-6 Wednesday night to miss out on forcing a tiebreaker.
“We obviously knew what was going in (between Yukon and Northwest Territories), but you still carry your record forward so we were really wanting to win that game and unfortunately it didn’t go our way,” Jones said. “Our backs are really against the wall now, but we have been in that position before. They say we can still curl (Thursday) so we’ll come out and do our best.”
There’s little or no room for error now for Team Canada, sitting at 4-3 with games against Alberta (7-0), Ontario (5-2) Northern Ontario (5-2) and either Manitoba (4-3) or B.C. (4-3) still to come.
ONTARIO BACK IN FORM
Rachel Homan’s Ontario foursome booked a spot in the championship round Wednesday afternoon with an 8-6 win over British Columbia (Sarah Wark).
It was a nice bounce-back for Homan, who lost twice on Tuesday and was in danger of falling into a tiebreaker with another mis-step.
Ontario finished pool play at 5-2, tied with Northern Ontario (Krista Mccarville) for second place in Pool A. Chelsea Carey’s Alberta rink ran the table to finish at 7-0 and will start championship round play all alone in first place.
“It’s good to be moving on to the second round without having to go through tiebreakers,” Homan said. “That was pretty important for us. It’s a job well done this week so far.”
Mccarville beat Manitoba’s Tracy Fleury 7-5 to lock up a spot in the championship round. Manitoba’s loss dropped the Fleury foursome (4-3) into a tiebreaker on Thursday morning against B.C.
Fleury and Wark were looking at the bright side of still having an opportunity to keep playing.
“Happy to still be alive with three losses, so that’s the positive take-away,” Fleury said. “We’re playing good and we’re feeling OK about Thursday.”
LEARNING ON THE JOB
Scheidegger’s team out of Lethbridge, Alta, which consists of third Cary-anne Mctaggart, second Jessie Haughian and lead Kristy Moore, has been rolling ever since winning the wild card game against Kerri Einarson on Friday night. They’ve been one of the most consistent teams on the ice, piling up the wins.
“Momentum is huge in this,” Scheidegger said.
That being said, she admitted her team didn’t handle the transition from pool play to the championship round last year in its first Scotties appearance. The team also went 6-1 in the preliminary round robin last year before fading fast.
THE GREATEST THIRD
Jan Betker of the Sandra Schmirler Saskatchewan team that won three Scotties, three world championships and an Olympic gold medal in the 1990s, has been voted the greatest third of all-time in women’s curling in a TSN poll. She took 12 of 31 firstplace votes to beat out Winnipeg’s Cathy Overton-clapham (eight first-place votes), Kaitlyn Lawes of Winnipeg and Team Canada (six) and Kim Kelly of Halifax (five). ■ FOR MORE COVERAGE SEE THESTARPHOENIX.COM/SPORTS